Culture of Minnesota
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Culture of Minnesota is a subculture of the United States. American culture, in general, is largely based on Western and British culture, with influences from native Americans, African Americans, and numerous immigrant groups.
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[edit] People
Stereotypical Minnesotan traits include manners known as "Minnesota nice", Lutheranism, and a strong sense of community and shared culture. Potlucks, usually with a variety of hotdish casseroles, are popular at community functions, especially church activities. Movies such as Drop Dead Gorgeous, the radio show A Prairie Home Companion and the book How to Talk Minnesotan lampoon (and celebrate) Minnesotan culture, speech and mannerisms.
The Minnesota State Fair, advertised as The Great Minnesota Get-Together, is an icon of state culture. In a state of 5.1 million people, there were nearly 1.7 million visitors to the fair in 2006.[1] The fair covers the variety of life in Minnesota, including fine art, science, agriculture, food preparation, 4H displays, music, the midway, and corporate merchandising. It is known for its displays of seed art, butter sculptures of dairy princesses, and the birthing barn. On a smaller scale, these attractions are also offered at the state's many county fairs.
Other large annual festivals include the Saint Paul Winter Carnival, the Minneapolis Aquatennial, the Mill City Music Festival, and Detroit Lakes' 10,000 Lakes Festival and WE Fest, and Moondance Jam & Jammin' Country, both held every summer in Walker.
[edit] Midwestern accent
Minnesota's distinctive variation of the Upper Midwestern accent, lampooned by films such as Fargo, has been characterized as an "odd, sing-songy Swedish manner of speech, full of laconic sentences ending Yah".[2] The media has made it appear that the local vocabulary is sprinkled with Scandinavian-sounding words such as uff da and terms such as "you betcha".
[edit] Cuisine
- See also: Cuisine of Sweden, Cuisine of Norway, Cuisine of Germany, Cuisine of Laos, Cuisine of Vietnam, and Cuisine of Mexico
Minnesota's culture appropriated traditions from its parent Scandinavian and German heritages, adopting traditional cuisine items such as Lefse, lutefisk, rosettes, gravlax, lingonberries, kransekake, sausages, and sauerkraut. Immigrants in the late 20th and 21st century are more likely to have come from Vietnam, Somalia, Laos, and Mexico, bringing with them traditional food items such as cha-lua, summer rolls, cymbopogon, thai basil, ginger, padek, taquitos, tortillas, and poblanos. A significant Northeast African presence has also developed in recent years, with the Somali Resource website listing a total of twenty "restaurants of the Somali community." [3]
The relatively short growing season demanded agricultural innovation. The Minnesota Agricultural Experiment Station's Horticultural Research Center at the University of Minnesota developed two new apple varieties, the Haralson and the Honeycrisp. These fare well in the harsh Minnesota climate and produce popular fruit.
At the Minnesota State Fair dozens of foods are offered "on a stick", such as Pronto Pups, cheese curds, and deep fried candy bars. Although not actually typical Minnesota Cuisine, these are archetypal fair foods.
[edit] Music
The music of Minnesota has played a role in the historical and cultural development of Minnesota. The state's music scene centers on the Minneapolis-Saint Paul area, and most of the Minnesotan artists who have become nationally popular either came from that area or debuted there. Rural Minnesota has also produced a flourishing folk music scene, with a long tradition of traditional Swedish, Finnish and Norwegian music.[4] Minnesota's modern local music scene is home to thousands of local bands, many of which perform with some regularity.[5] Some performers from nearby regions of neighboring states, such as western Wisconsin and Fargo, North Dakota, are often considered a part of the Minnesota music scene.
Minneapolis has produced a number of famous performers, such as Bob Dylan, who was born in Hibbing and began his musical career in the Minneapolis area, and Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, who eventually formed The Time and produced for Gladys Knight and Janet Jackson. Minneapolis' most influential contributions to American popular music began in the 1970s and 1980s, when the city's music scene "expanded the state's cultural identity" and launched the careers of acclaimed performers like the multi-platinum soul singer Prince, and cult favorites The Replacements and Hüsker Dü. More recently, the Twin Cities has played a role in the national hip-hop scene with artists such as Atmosphere and P.O.S.[6] and the cult favorites Motion City Soundtrack.[7] Other musicians of many genres have been popular over the years, including harmony singers The Andrews Sisters and Semisonic, an alternative rock group.
[edit] Sports and recreation
Sports in Minnesota include professional teams in all major sports, Olympic Games contenders and medalists, especially in the Winter Olympics, collegiate teams in major and small-school conferences and associations, and active amateur teams and individual sports. The State of Minnesota has a team in all four major professional leagues (MLB, NFL, NBA, and NHL), and the University of Minnesota is part of the oldest major college conference still running (the Big Ten).
While Minnesota's warm summers provide its natives and tourists with a variety of outdoor activities, its winters are what it is most known for. Many Minnesotans embrace winter. The state has produced curlers and skiers who have competed in the Winter Olympics, pioneers who invented the snowmobile, and legions of ice fishing enthusiasts.[8] The state is also known for enthusiastic ice hockey players, both at the amateur and professional levels. Eveleth, Minnesota, home to the United States Hockey Hall of Fame, boasts of the number of quality players and the contributions of the city (and the rest of the Mesabi Range) to the growth and development of hockey in the United States. [9] The abundance of both indoor and outdoor ice rinks in the state provides ample opportunities for learning and practicing several winter sports, which in turn produces accomplished athletes in those sports.
Having over ten thousand of them, lakes naturally play an important role in the state's recreation patterns. Minnesota has the highest per-capita boat registration figure of any state in the country. [10]
[edit] Fine and performing arts
The Twin Cities area is considered the artistic capital of the Upper Midwest. Its major fine art museums include the Weisman Art Museum, the Walker Art Center, and the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra and the Minnesota Orchestra are full-time professional musical ensembles that perform concerts and offer educational programs to the community. Attendance at theatrical, musical, and comedy events in the area is strong, which may be attributed to the cold winters, the large population of post-secondary students, and a generally vibrant economy. The Guthrie Theater moved into a new building in 2006, boasting three stages and overlooking the Mississippi River. In the U.S., the Twin Cities' number of theater seats per capita ranks behind only New York City; in 2000, 2.3 million theater tickets were sold.[11] The Minnesota Fringe Festival is an annual celebration of theatre, dance, improvisation, puppetry, kids' shows, visual art, and musicals. The summer festival consists of over 800 performances in 11 days, and is the largest non-juried performing arts festival in the United States.[12] The SteppingStone Theatre for Youth Development is the largest performing theatre for youth in the state, featuring six all-youth cast productions each season.
[edit] Weather
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Minnesota's climate has done much to shape the image and culture of the state. Minnesotans boast of their "theater of seasons", with a late but intense spring, a summer of water sports, a fall of brilliantly colored leaves in the state's parks and hardwood forests, and (last but surely not least) a long winter made bearable by outdoor sports and recreation.
"Summer at the lake" is a Minnesota tradition. Water skiing was invented in Minnesota by Ralph Samuelson, and the Minneapolis Aquatennial features a milk carton boat race. Contestants build boats from milk cartons and float them on Minneapolis area lakes, with recognition based more on colorful and imaginative designs than on actual racing performance.[13]
To many outsiders, Minnesota's winters appear to be cold and inhospitable. A World War II newscaster, in describing the brutally cold conditions of the Russian front, stated that at least Minnesotans could understand it.[8] A New York journalist visited St. Paul and declared that the city was "another Siberia, unfit for human habitation." In response, the city decided to build a huge ice palace in 1886, similar to one that Montreal had built in 1885. They hired the architects of the Canadian ice palace to design one for St. Paul, and built a palace 106 feet (32.3 m) high with ice blocks cut from a nearby lake.[13] This began the tradition of the Saint Paul Winter Carnival, which spawned a legend with a mythical king, "King Boreas". Each winter, King Boreas declares a ten-day celebration with feasting, fun, and frolic, along with the "Queen of the Snows" and singer "Klondike Kate". Ice sculptures are featured, and periodically ice palaces are built; one was the setting of St. Paul native F. Scott Fitzgerald's story The Ice Palace, published in Flappers and Philosophers. On the tenth day of the festival, "Vulcanus Rex", the King of Fire, storms the castle with his Vulcan Krewe, compelling Boreas to relinquish winter's hold on the land until he returns again.[14]
[edit] Popular culture
Twins Brandon and Brenda Walsh were from Minneapolis on the TV series Beverly Hills, 90210.[15] American Idol held auditions for its sixth season in Minneapolis in 2006[16] and Last Comic Standing held auditions for its fifth season in Minneapolis in 2007.[17] The winner of season 4 was Josh Blue, a St. Paul native. The actor winning the role of "Sandy" on the televised Grease: You're the One that I Want! competition was Laura Osnes, an Eagan native; she will play Sandy in the 2007 Broadway run of Grease. A statue of Mary Tyler Moore downtown on the Nicollet Mall commemorates the 1970s television situation comedy Mary Tyler Moore, awarded 3 Golden Globes and 31 Emmy Awards.[18]
Minnesota's winters are the setting of several Hollywood films, including the ice fishing comedies of Grumpy Old Men and Grumpier Old Men, set in Wabasha and filmed in the state.[19] [20] The 1996 film noir Fargo also features the backdrop of a Minnesota winter, but like most of the characters in the movie, the climate is portrayed as bleak and inhospitable.[21]
Summer resorts on Minnesota's "10,000 lakes" may prefer to emphasize warm-season activities, but from The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show's Frostbite Falls, Minnesota to Fargo, the popular image of the state's climate is defined more by the state's winters than by its other three seasons.
A small town known as Walnut Grove is the setting for the TV series Little House on the Prairie.
[edit] Fandom
The metro area is the long-standing home of several fandom organizations such as SF Minnesota, MISFITS, and Mnstf who annually hold Diversicon, CONvergence, and Minicon, respectively. These are each large gatherings of fans interested in science, speculative, and fantasy fiction; panels are held where authors, publishers, and scientists interact with readers, viewers, and fans of filk music with the goal of increasing enlightenment of the topics discussed.
[edit] References
- ^ Minnesota State Fair. Minnesota State Fair. Retrieved on 2006-11-22.
- ^ BBC Films. BBC. Retrieved on 2007-02-11.
- ^ Somali Resource - Business. Retrieved on 2007-07-21.
- ^ Garland, pp. 866 - 881
- ^ Music Scene.org An incomplete listing of local bands at MusicScene.org has 2,241 entries as of February 2005, while a concert calendar compiled by the University of Minnesota's radio station usually lists dozens of performances each week in the Twin Cities
- ^ Minneapolis Music Collection In the mid-1970s and early 1980s, the creative explosion in Minnesota's thriving black and white rock music scenes expanded the state's cultural identity far beyond the shores of Lake Wobegon.
- ^ Breining, Greg (December 2005). Compass American Guides: Minnesota, 3rd Edition, 3rd, Compass American Guides. ISBN 1-4000-1484-0.
- ^ a b Lass, William E. [1977] (1998). Minnesota: A History, 2nd, New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company. ISBN 0-393-04628-1.
- ^ U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame. Retrieved on 2007-02-04.
- ^ Boat & Water Safety: Minnesota DNR. Retrieved on 2007-12-10.
- ^ Gopher Express. Coffman Info Desk. Regents of the University of Minnesota (2006-10-12). Retrieved on 2006-10-24.
- ^ How to fringe. Fresh Art Delivered Daily. Minnesota Fringe Festival (2006). Retrieved on 2006-11-22.
- ^ a b Dregni, Eric; Mark Moran, Mark Sceurman (2006). Weird Minnesota. New York, NY: Sterling Publishing. ISBN 1-4027-3908-7.
- ^ Winter Carnival: History. St. Paul Winter Carnival. Retrieved on 2007-02-04.
- ^ Sparling, David A., Internet Movie Database (undated). Plot summary for "Beverly Hills, 90210". Retrieved on 2007-03-14.
- ^ Gary Levin, USA TODAY (July 10, 2006). Idol tryouts begin Aug. 8. Retrieved on 2007-03-14.
- ^ NBC's "Last Comic Standing" Live Tour. North Shore Music Theatre. Retrieved on 2007-05-15.
- ^ Meet Minneapolis (2007). Mary Tyler Moore statue. Retrieved on 2007-03-21.and Internet Movie Database (2007). Awards for "Mary Tyler Moore" (1970). Retrieved on 2007-03-14.
- ^ Filming Locations for Grumpy Old Men. Internet Movie Database. Retrieved on 2007-02-11.
- ^ Filming Locations for Grumpier Old Men. Internet Movie Database. Retrieved on 2007-02-11.
- ^ Review of Fargo. New York Times. Retrieved on 2007-02-11.
